ISLAMABAD, May 12: Supreme Court Bar Association President Asma Jehangir on Thursday appreciated the demand of a commission on the Abbottabad incident but suggested to spare the judiciary, asking the political leadership to take the probe's ownership.

“Please don't bring in the judiciary. Political leadership should take the initiative of investigating the incident,” she told a protest at the Bar Room of the Supreme Court Bar Association to condemn the May 12, 2007 killings in Karachi.

“If the judiciary and the army have to run the affairs of the government, then the political parties should go home,” Ms Jehangir observed, adding that the politicians have to come up with answers. “We as a nation have suffered hugely.”

The protest was observed on the call of Pakistan Bar Council (PBC) President Latif Afridi and SCBA. Apart from Mr Afridi, the meeting was also addressed by former SCBA's presidents – Aitzaz Ahsan, Muneer A Malik and Ali Ahmed Kurd.

On Wednesday, PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif had called for forming a high level commission comprising chief justices of the Supreme Court and the high courts to probe the US raid that led to the killing of Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad on May 2.

The SCBA president promised to launch initiatives to rehabilitate the families of lawyers who lost lives during the May 12 carnage. Referring to disappearance of two lawyers in Balochistan who are believed to be picked up by intelligence agencies, Ms Jehangir apprised the lawyers about her meetings with the Inspector General Frontier Constabulary (FC) and the Governor. She threatened protest if the two lawyers were not recovered alive in three weeks.

Mr Afridi lamented the rising extremism and religious fanaticism which, he said, was the handiwork of General Ziaul Haq. Asking the liberal, democratic and progressive forces to get united against extremism, he said the people of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan were fed up with the growing fundamentalism and the war imposed on them.

A resolution adopted by the meeting condemned with “full force the bloodbath and terrorism played in Karachi,” demanding to revive the proceedings of the judicial commission investigating the events of May 12 and bring to book those responsible for the killings.